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Pocket fm insights ’25: 86 per cent of listeners prefer audio dramas over podcasts
MUMBAI: For millions of Indians, screens are out and sound is in. Pocket fm’s entertainment insights ’25 report reveals how audio series have emerged as the country’s most intimate form of entertainment, redefining binge culture.
Based on responses from 20,538 digital entertainment consumers, the survey reveals that audio dramas are now part of daily life, with 49 per cent listening to over 10 episodes a day, 50 per cent tuning in for more than 90 minutes (including 35 per cent who cross two hours), 60 per cent listening during leisure time, 48 per cent during commutes, and 86 per cent preferring episodic audio dramas over podcasts, audiobooks, or music.
At the center of this shift is young India (18–24 years), treating audio series as both escape and habit. Genres such as drama (40 per cent), romance (37 per cent), sci-fi/fantasy (37 per cent), and thriller/horror (34 per cent) dominate, with Hindi leading at 53 per cent while regional languages rapidly gain ground.
Monetisation patterns are equally unique: three in four prefer micro-payments over subscriptions, mirroring India’s wider digital payment culture.
And the future? Surprisingly open to tech. 80 per cent of listeners say they are comfortable with AI-generated storytelling, so long as the narrative connects emotionally.
“India has always been a storytelling nation, from epics to bollywood. What we are witnessing now is a generational pivot,” said Pocket entertainment, co-founder and ceo, Rohan Nayak. “People aren’t abandoning video; they’re choosing audio because it offers intimacy, imagination, and freedom. The future of pop culture will be defined as much by what we hear as by what we see.”
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IICT partners with Gativedhi to bring studio production tools to students
New MoU lets students explore AI-driven production pipelines for AVGC-XR
MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) has teamed up with Gativedhi Technologies to give students a front-row seat to modern studio production. The collaboration will integrate Gativedhi’s AI-powered production intelligence platform, Shotrack, into academic programmes, letting students experience the workflow systems used by animation, VFX and gaming studios.
Under the MoU, faculty, students and researchers will get hands-on access to Shotrack through beta programmes, pilot deployments and academic evaluations. This will allow them to explore simulated production pipelines, understand asset management, track tasks and monitor schedules, essentially seeing how complex projects come together behind the scenes.
Shotrack is designed to tackle a key industry challenge: when multiple studios work on the same project, differing internal systems often create bottlenecks, slow approvals and complicate version control. The platform provides a unified production environment, enabling smoother collaboration across distributed teams while generating operational insights and predictive analytics to optimise crew allocation, forecast schedule risks and manage costs.
The collaboration also opens doors to Gativedhi’s wider ecosystem. Upcoming tools include StudioTrack, for studio operations management covering budgeting, recruitment and IT infrastructure, and WorkTrack, which measures workflow efficiency and team productivity across industries.
IICT plans to embed these tools into programmes covering animation pipelines, VFX workflows, gaming production and media project management. Students will also benefit from guest lectures, masterclasses, workshops, internships and research projects that connect academic learning with real-world studio practices.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar, said the partnership provides “An environment where production pipeline tools can be explored, tested and refined while students gain insight into how large-scale productions are organised.”
Gativedhi Technologies founder & CEO Senthil Kumar added, “This collaboration introduces students to real-world studio management tools and helps us improve our platform with academic feedback.”
With Shotrack in classrooms, India’s future animators, VFX artists and gaming producers will get a taste of studio life long before they step into one.
